It’s often remarked that America has become less religious, especially during recent decades. But what if that religiosity hasn’t disappeared, but just taken less visible forms?
That’s exactly what was happening in the arts in 1980s NYC, argues Paul Elie, author of The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s.
As Elie tells it, the era wasn’t just marked by the ascendance of the moral majority and the authority of tradition—figures like Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan.
It also featured subtle engagement with spiritual themes by the likes of figures like Leonard Cohen, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, and Martin Scorcese, and provides a template for understanding where Catholicism stands today.
For further reading:
An excerpt from Paul Elie’s new book
Kaya Oakes on why religion must ask better questions
Susan Bigelow Reynolds on millennial religious rejection
--------
27:45
--------
27:45
Ep. 151 - The First U.S. Pontiff
The swift elevation to the papacy of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—known simply as ‘Bob’ among his fellow Augustinian friars—defied pundits’ predictions even as it was met with joy by Catholics around the world.
It’s impossible to say just how Leo XIV’s papacy will unfold, though in his early Masses and remarks the pope has already voiced strong support for the continuation of Francis’s project of synodality. Leo’s chosen name signals his commitment to the advancement of Catholic social teaching.
On this episode, Commonweal contributors Natalia Imperatori-Lee and Mollie Wilson O’Reilly and editor Dominic Preziosi reflect on Pope Leo’s first week on the chair of Peter.
For further reading:
The editors on Leo’s election
Anthony Annett on Pope Leo and AI
Stephen Millies on Leo and Chicago’s CTU
Massimo Faggioli on what Leo’s pontificate signals for the U.S. Church
--------
23:37
--------
23:37
Ep. 150 - Remembering Francis
Three theologians—Massimo Faggioli, Susan Bigelow Reynolds, and Terence Sweeney—reflect with Commonweal editors on the pope’s legacy.
More coverage of the death of Pope Francis:
Isabella Simon on Let Us Dream
César J. Baldelomar on Laudato Si’
Griffin Oleynick on Evangelii gaudium
--------
46:34
--------
46:34
Ep. 149 - When the Good Book Isn’t a Book
Catholics listen to snippets of the Bible read every Sunday, but how many of them actually sit with and ponder the text?
It’s long been a truism that Catholics don’t actually read the Bible — at least not as much or in the same way as their Protestant brethren.
But that doesn’t mean Catholics don’t encounter it, whether in books, films, plays, or popular culture.
On this episode, Fordham theology professor and frequent Commonweal contributor Michael Peppard, author of the new book How Catholics Encounter the Bible, joins editor Dominic Preziosi to discuss how, paradoxically, the Bible shapes Catholic lives—just usually not in the shape of a book.
For further reading:
Michael Peppard on the Bible and Marian art
Christian Wiman on the Bible as poetry
Eve Tushnet on the queer Catholic imagination
--------
30:31
--------
30:31
Ep. 148 - What Novels Do
What should great fiction do for us?
That’s the question asked by Edwin Frank, editorial director of New York Review Books and author of Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel.
Good books—and there were many written during the past hundred years—can entertain, just as they can give us pleasure. But great ones have the ‘power to breach,’ that is, to upset and provoke us, shattering our illusions about the world.
On this episode, Frank speaks with Commonweal contributor and literary critic Tony Domestic about authors like Dostoevsy, Proust, and Virginia Woolf, among others.
For further reading:
Fiction by Alice McDermott
Mollie Wilson O’Reilly on George Eliot’s double life
Tony Domestico’s latest books column
Conversations at the intersection of politics, religion, and culture: Commonweal Magazine editor Dominic Preziosi hosts The Commonweal Podcast, a regular compendium of in-depth interviews, discussions, and profiles presented by Commonweal’s editors and contributors.
Brasil